1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vacuum cleaner, and in particular, to a soil collection receptacle attaching/detaching apparatus for a cyclone vacuum cleaner provided with a cyclone unit that renders inhaled air to form swirling air streams, whereby soils are separated from the swirling air streams by centrifugal force, and to a cyclone vacuum cleaner having the soil collection receptacle attaching/detaching apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical example of the cyclone vacuum cleaner is illustrated in FIG. 1, which will be briefly described below.
As shown in FIG. 1, the cyclone vacuum cleaner comprises: a cleaner body 10, an accommodation recess 11 provided in the cleaner body 10, and a cyclone unit 20 removably installed in the accommodation recess 11.
A vacuum generation apparatus (not shown) is provided in the inside of the cleaner body 10, and a suction brush 12 is provided on the bottom side of the cleaner body 10.
The cyclone unit 20 comprises a cyclone body 30 and a soil collection receptacle 40 detachably connected to the cyclone body 30.
The upper side of the cyclone body 30 is provided with an inflow passage 31 communicating with the suction brush 12, whereby soils inhaled through the suction brush 12 from a to-be-cleaned-surface flow into the inside of the cyclone body 30 through the inflow passage 31. Here, the inflow passage 31 is arranged so that the air inhaled through the inflow passage 31 flows into the cyclone body 30 in the tangential direction of the cyclone body 30. Therefore, the air inhaled through the inflow passage 31 forms swirling streams along the inner wall of the cyclone body 30.
A discharge passage 32 communicating with the vacuum-generating device is provided at the center of the topside of the cyclone body 30. Soils-removed air is discharged from the cyclone body 30 to the outside of the cleaner body 10 through the discharge passage 32 and the vacuum-generating device. And, the soils separated from the air in the cyclone body 30 are collected in the soil collection receptacle 40 connected to the bottom side of the cyclone body 30.
By the way, the cyclone accommodation recess 11 are arranged of the cleaner body 10 in such a manner that one end of each of the tubes 13 and 14 opens toward the front, wherein the other ends of the tubes 13 and 14 are connected to the vacuum generating device and the suction brush 12, respectively, and the inflow passage 31 and the discharge passage 32 are arranged in parallel toward the rear. Accordingly, the only horizontal movement of the cyclone body 30 allows easy connection of the inflow passage 31 and the discharge passage 32 with the tubes 13 and 14.
A locking handle 33 is rotatably installed in the rear part of the outside of the cyclone body 30 and the corresponding part in the cleaner body 10 is provided with a handle receiving part 15. If the locking handle 33 is rotated 90° after passing through the handle receiving part 15, the cyclone body 30 is installed in the cleaner body 10.
However, the above-mentioned conventional cyclone vacuum cleaner has a problem in that in order to dump soils collected in the soil collection receptacle 40, it is required to entirely separate the cyclone unit 20 from the accommodation recess 11 of the cleaner body 10 and then to separate the soil collection receptacle 40 from the cyclone body 30, thereby causing inconvenience in use.
That is, with the conventional cyclone vacuum cleaner, it impossible to separate only the soil collection receptacle 40 from the cyclone accommodation recess 11 of the cleaner body 10 due to the construction thereof. Accordingly, it is requested that the locking apparatus of the cyclone body 30 be firstly released in relation to the cleaner body 10, the cyclone unit 20 be entirely separated from the cleaner body, and then the soil collection receptacle 40 be separated from the cyclone body 30. The cyclone unit 20 should be mounted in the cleaner body in the reversed order after the soils collected in the soil collection receptacle are dumped. Therefore, there is a disadvantage in that the above handling is very complicate and it is very difficult to disassemble and assemble the soil collection receptacle 40.
In addition, such a conventional vacuum cleaner exhibits a sanitary problem in that the user's hands or clothes are stained with collected dusts when the soil collection receptacle is periodically disassembled, cleaned and assembled.